There And Back Again

So the other day, Scott & I decided to go to Treasure Island Casino for a nice dinner and a little bit of video poker. Nothing big, but we wanted to take advantage of their 'free stuff on your birthday month' promotion, and we like the buffet (especially on Crab Leg night).

And we did mostly have a good time, other than the little snafu with the slot machine download thingie (but in the end I won lots of money - if you count 'more than 10' as lots)... and other than the rather serious conversation we had midway through.

The thing is, last time I was at Treasure Island was when I took Bren there in May. In May I was walking around the casino, and although standing in one spot got a bit uncomfortable after an extended period, I didn't have any problems to speak of.

In less than 5 months, I went from pretty much normal to having to use a scooter just to get into the casino, much less get myself around the building. Even a cane or walker would not have done it for me. I get winded if I walk half a block down the sidewalk. It's getting to be quite a project to get up and down the stairs in front of the house. I'm not just in pain, although I am in pain - I'm getting weaker.

Five months.

The thing about cancer is that from the inside, you deal with it on a day by day basis. So it's easy to overlook just how quickly it is eating away at you. You are too busy finding ways to work around the parts The Monster has bitten off.

But the fact is, The Monster is voracious, and it eats faster and faster. So it's time to stop and really think about what that means. We need to prepare.

It feels overwhelming. On both practical and emotional terms. We can't deal with it all at once, and it's not really possible to do so. As my friend Roberta says, the very end is fairly predictable, but everyone's path to that bit of road is different. So we can't know exactly what we'll need in the future.

But the future is coming on us fast.

And we're talking about it.

That's a start.